Do you want an actual answer? Or are you just taking an opportunity to make fun of us?

Actual answer….

First of all, the Catholic Church is always going to oppose anything that involves human beings used as objects for pure physical pleasure. And that’s literally all porn is: using strangers to get off. And that leads to a second problem- it devalues sex. If you watch people have sex on the Internet as a hobby, you can’t possibly treat sex as what it is for a Catholic- a reflection of God. Beyond that, it’s highly addictive.Beyond that, it is literally the same as prostitution, except that it’s possibly even more selfish (at least when you buy a prostitute, you put yourself at risk for gratification). Beyond that, it’s an industry that abuses its employees horribly. Doing porn does horrid things to the “actor’s” bodies. And it leads to depression, suicide, drug addiction… Because those people are no longer human- they’ve been cheapened to the point of being breathing sex toys.Beyond that, as a woman in a relationship, it would bother me deeply if my boyfriend was looking at other women naked to get off. The only difference between porn and cheating is that porn is socially acceptable.

If you are saying what I think you are saying, you aren’t contrary at all to the above. Lust and pornography is a disordered form of the good of Love and sex. Actively removing that distortion would bring the God-given romantic and sexual desires back in alignment of where they should be. Good for you, though, man. That’s really great! I would have to agree as I have experienced the same thing.

This is why I say catholics are nuts

Really? This is the reason? I can give you a lot more reasons to think we are nuts than that we think porn is bad for you.

We believe the Jesus is _actually_ present in the bread at Mass. We believe that He rose from the dead and is the Son of God. I could go on but you get the point.

Thinking porn is bad for you is really just a sign that you’re paying attention.

Given that lots of people are going to do research about whether porn is bad for you, that some relatively high percent of scientific studies find false positives, that you can get the MRI results you want even if you use a dead salmon instead of a human brain, I’m not sure this is more evidence than you would expect to find by chance.

I’m not saying it’s bad or that people shouldn’t be discussing this question, just that the state of the research right now isn’t very convincing.

I’m also skeptical that enough philosophical legwork has been done to say that porn is “addictive” in a way different from how playing a really fun computer game is addictive, or what that even means.

Seems like a perfect opportunity to taboo “addictive”. I do not think anyone will argue with me that watching some porn leads to watching more porn, and eventually “needing” it. This actuality seems to bypass any need to define it as “medically” addictive.

I mean, it’s a classic infohazard type situation, and we should put warnings on those. “Beware starting this, it tends to get out of hand quickly.” This is true for reasons that are completely distinct from any conventional sexual morality.

what was Tywin’s plan if Eddard has gone after Clegane instead of Berric? he can’t actually know that Robert’s going to be assassinated, so isn’t luring the Hand of the King into an ambush just setting up a really elaborate way for the Lannister family to commit suicide?

That was his plan. He wanted to defeat and capture Eddard, force a prisoner transfer on unequal terms (symbolically humiliating the head of House Stark by equating him with Tyrion), and then hand Robert a fait accompli.

Now what Tywin planned to do if Eddard caught an arrow and word got out that Tywin had murdered the Hand of the King and was now in open rebellion against the Iron Throne, I don’t know. But then again, Tywin was a monumentally arrogant man who didn’t really understand that the people around him would do things he didn’t foresee them doing.

It’s true. One can say that Robb was a brilliant commander, but one can also say that Tywin was such a poor commander and judge of character that he was consistently outwitted by a 15 year old.

[Attention conservation notice: I can’t imagine what you would get out of this if you are not a member of or interested in joining rationalist tumblr.] [Note: Tumblr rationalists, feel free to comment with anything I’ve missed!] Absence of rationality content. I’m not going to say that no one posts rationality content on Rationalist Tumblr– bad brains blogging is sort of applied rationality,…

I don’t think it matters very much. I feel like a big part of this election has been people revolting against a supposed system of elites bribing politicians to implement evil policies – that’s part of why Trump’s so popular, he can honestly claim to be self-funding and so not beholden to campaign contributions. But I don’t think there are clearly great policies which the only reason we’re not enacting is because politicians are too corrupt (w/ possible exception of ending various forms of corporate welfare). I think most issues are genuinely hard, or genuinely involve conflicting ideologies.

Also, in cases where companies are bribing candidates to go against the popular will, at least half the time I’m more in line with the companies. I think there are a lot of populist ideas, like totally closed borders, which are pretty bad, and that companies which have economic self-interest and some common sense provide a useful check and balance against those.

Yeah, I was surprised the other day with the thought, “But, what is actually the problem with corporate cronyism?”

I would much rather my own industry (oil & gas) be strongly involved in regulating itself than have a bunch of clueless politicians drafting laws that sound good and appeal to their constituencies but actually destroy value needlessly. I say this not because I want my industry to be able to do whatever it wants, but because my industry knows what needs to be done to establish good competitive practices, evenhanded but realistic environmental regulations, and sound trade policies within its own domain.

If I extrapolate this view to “Wall Street”, then I’m sure my opposite number at Goldman Sachs really genuinely thinks that it would be in the nation’s best interests to let the banks collaboratively formulate their own regulations. Competition between individual banks motivates all banks to be in favor of rules that ensure fair competition and consistent application of the law.

I suppose there’s some line between “purely corrupt de facto corporate oligarchy” and “republic with a moderate amount of corporate influence” but I think we’re mostly on the right side of that line.

The Millennium Falcon was the first thing we were actually building. I had been in London and I came home back to L.A. for Christmas. So I go to Sports Chalet to do some last-minute shopping; I get there early, run to the back of the store, get what I need. I’m coming back through the store, and I just happen to pass this person holding up a pair of ski pants, and it’s Harrison Ford. I look at him, he looks at me and puts his head right down. I can tell he doesn’t want to be bothered; I’m sure from the look on my face he knew I knew who he was. So I walk past him, and after about 10 feet I think, ‘If there’s ever a time to say hello to Harrison Ford, I’m building the Millennium Falcon!’ So I turn around very hesitantly and go, ‘Harrison, I’m sorry to bother you. I’m co-production designer on the new Star Wars, I’m just back from London, and I’ve been building the Falcon.’ A big smile came across his face, he put his hand out, and we had such a great conversation — he couldn’t have been sweeter. As I’m walking away, he goes, ‘Darren!’ and calls me back. He goes, ‘The toggle switches.’ I go, ‘Toggle switches.’ He goes, ‘The toggle switches on the Falcon. When they built it the first time, they bought cheap toggle switches without any springs in them. Every time I threw a toggle switch, it fell back; it wouldn’t hold. It drove me crazy. Please, make sure the toggle switches are fixed this time.’ I go, ‘No problem! I’ll take care of it!’ So months go by, I’m back in London, we’re getting close [to principal photography], and I get a phone call saying J.J.’s headed down to check out the cockpit, and Harrison’s with him. I run down there and I see J.J. in the passenger seat and Harrison in the pilot seat. They’re just giddy; they’re having so much fun. And then I see Harrison look up, and he just starts throwing all the toggle switches: boom, boom, boom, boom. [Laughs.] And I remember thinking, ‘Phew, minor victory. Take solace in that and move on. Next task.’ That’s my favorite story.

Reading Worm is depressing, because I feel like I’ll never be as good as Wildbow at most facets of writing.

I console myself by remembering my comparative advantages. For example, I wouldn’t write about a team of mass murderers called the Slaughterhouse Nine without at least considering taking away four members and calling them the Slaughterhouse Five.

I … didn’t … isn’t it implied that they started out as the Slaughterhouse Five and adopted more members?